Pornography, Wrong Because?

I was recently reading an article about Pornography. In AlJazeera no less! I won't get into talking about the article itself, it had some points, as well as a lot if internal contradictions, you can read it if you want. I was struck though by some of the comments. One in particular:

Your moral standards hit Bikini Bottom.
Pornography is wrong because it uses woman for the entertainment of others.
It's wrong because you wouldn't like your child to watch it.
It's wrong because you feel guilty after you watch those kind of things.

I'd just like to take a second to analyze this. The first line is simply ad hominem, so we can ignore it.

The second boils down to two things. 1, we are using women for the entertainment. 2, that is morally wrong. Both of these are incorrect. Pornography does use women, that is true. But is is misleading, because pornography also uses men. We use PEOPLE, not women, for entertainment. The second part is the statement that using them is wrong. But using people for entertainment isn't wrong. Movies, Television, Music, all use other people to entertain us. The content might be wrong, but the fact that other people are entertaining us isn't inherently bad.

The third line says that you shouldn't let your child watch it, and so it's morally wrong. The problem here is the author makes no differentiation between children and adults. There are many things that I wouldn't let my child do that I don't think are morally wrong. Join the military, getting married and have sex, skydiving. None of these are morally wrong. They do however, require maturity and the ability to reason, which children don't have yet. I wouldn't want my child to look at pornography. That doesn't mean it's morally wrong for an adult though.

Finally the fourth line says that it is wrong because we feel guilty after watching. Well, I don't feel guilty, and it's hardly my problem is the author does. Whether an action is ethically wrong or right cannot be dependent on feelings of guilt because feelings of guilt aren't universal. A skilled psychologist could condition someone to feel massive feelings of guilt at watching porn. That psychologist could also condition that person to feel zero guilt. Do those changeable feelings dictate that porn is morally wrong or not? No, they don't, because ethics isn't based on perception. Reality isn't based on belief. The majority at one point believed the Earth was flat, which didn't change the fact that the Earth is round. I can feel guilty after looking at porn because I believe it's morally wrong, which doesn't change the fact that porn isn't morally wrong.
 

Monogomy

I was raised as a Methodist Christian, and in that faith, all sex outside of marriage is both a sin, and wrong/evil. Over time, my beliefs on the issue have evolved, and I'd like to examine the issue here.

First I'd like to say, I differentiate between 'sin' and 'evil'. Sin is a Christian concept; anything that God says not to do is a sin. One sins by breaking any of God's rules. Evil on the other hand, is a universal concept, and it's one that is hard to define. Everyone's definition of what is wrong is slightly off. Some things are considered evil by nearly everyone in a society, such as murder. Some things are considered evil by only small portions, such as homosexuality. Evil is distinct from sin because evil is governed by your own conscience, sin is governed by God. Also, there are some things that are evil but not sin, such as offering one's daughters to be gangraped, and some things that are sin but not evil, such as gambling and in my opinion, sex outside of marriage.

Lets first examine whether sex outside of marriage is sin. In the Bible, there are many occasions where "sexual immorality" are condemned, such as Thessalonians 4:3-5 and Mark 7:20-23. Source However, it isn't defined what exactly constitutes "sexual immorality", which has lead to some confusion. Similarly, Number 7 of the 10 commandments reads: "Thou [You] shall not commit adultery." It is the same in the King James version, the New International, the New American Standard, as well as all other versions I checked. Source Again though, adultery isn't really defined, and interpretations vary widely. Whether it's a sin or not is difficult to say with certainty, which is why I fall to the other issue of whether it's evil or not.

So is extramarital sex morally wrong? I personally don't think so, and the reason lies in my definition of evil. I think evil has to involve harming someone. Harm means anything that hurts or diminishes someone, physically, mentally, or emotionally, without their consent. If an action doesn't involve harming someone, I don't think it's evil. And sex between two people doesn't innately harm someone.

Many situations that involve sex DO harm people:

Rape, Forced prostitution, Women with low self esteem going out and having sex with random strangers, a man cheating on his wife.

However, it's not the sex in these situations that is the problem. With rape, the problem is lack of consensuality, similar to force prostitution. With the 3rd, the problem is the lack of self esteem. With the cheating, the problem is the lying and the breaking of vows, which can cause severe emotional harm. In all cases, there is a specific reason that sex isn't a good idea. Sex itself isn't the harmful agent.

If two people with no other commitments wish to have sex, be it a one night stand, or a couple that's not yet married deciding to play around a little early, I don't think that it's morally wrong and I don't think they should be condemned for it. I'll note that if it IS a sin, then they might end up paying for it later on, but that is between that person and God, it's not our place to judge.

That said, would I consider having extramarital sex? My answer depends on the type. I absolutely want to avoid one night stands, because while I don't think it's wrong, I DO think that sex has a large emotional aspect, and I want the person that I just had sex with to be there in the morning. If I was in a long term committed relationship, and my partner wanted to play around a little early, I might consider it, but I'd want to be sure that there is a Very good chance that this person is the one I'd end up marrying. To me, marriage the final step in a commitment, it's built on previous commitments, realization of love. We don't go from casual dating to being married all of the sudden, and so I can see lots of situations where you know that you are going to end up with someone and are both fully committed to each other, before you hold that marriage license. I therefore don't really see any problem with starting early.

However, all of the above is just conjecture. It's what I hope I'd do. The real answer is that I don't know. Many people like to talk about what they would do, but the reality is, it's almost impossible to know what one would do without having been in that situation. The longest romantic relationship I've had lasted all of 4 weeks, I've never had the opportunity to have sex, so I can't say what I'd do. What I hope though, if physical sensations don't overwhelm me, is that I'd resist.
 

You Can't Always Get What You Want

It's a hard life lesson to accept, but one that touches all parts of our life. There's no such thing as inherent fairness in life, excepting what we create, and fate plays no favorites. Even though we all want things like a new car, a bigger house, and even something that's considered less selfish, true love, we won't always get it, and it's just life.

Whether it's never finding your soulmate, or worse, finding one you consider to be it and having that person reject you, many times life Doesn't work out. Even worse than being rejected, is having to reject someone else. An unmutual interest is bad on Both sides. Whatever the situation though, for whatever reason, you could, as scary as it seems, end up alone.

Is it really that bad?

Maybe. I had a friend tell me recently that she didn't even know what she was working towards anymore. What is the point in the end of amassing wealth if one has no one to share it with. That's certainly a valid point of view, but I reject it, because I don't think that love is in a catagory of it's own. What is the point of anything? Money, power, wealth? We all die in the end, and on that deathbed, all the money in the world isn't going to save you. By the same key, the love of your life holding your hand isn't going to save you either, and if you are the one holding the hand, it's the most painful thing in the world.

I'm not saying that finding that perfect someone is pointless, nor that we shouldn't attempt to do so. But failing to find him or her isn't the end of the world, similarly to a failure to become a millionare isn't. It's just one aspect of life, and there are others. Close friends, family, they can all fill emotional gaps.

We must realise that there are no guarantees in life. Being rejected sucks, but it's nothing to be mad about, it's just part of life. Move on, maybe we'll find somene, maybe not. That's one of the reasons I hate when people say, ohh there are plenty of other fish in the sea, or don't worry, you'll find someone eventually. You very well might Not. If we accept that fact and live with it, we acn avoid a whole host of depression, and overall live happier lives. Just need to accept that you can't always get what you want.


 

The Pedestal

A friend of mine wrote this poem recently, and it got me thinking about people's relationships, both romantic and platonic.

Nice boy, what makes you think you could pursue a goddess?
Offer gifts, quake in her presence, avert your gaze, grovel,
you in your lowly state could never please her.
She’s transcendent, she's out of your reach.
You’ll never have her,
ignored despite the fact it was you that made her.
You’re so afraid to be impious,
to forget what you've claimed as your place.
Try looking at her with confidence, humbled and human,
vulgar, chaotic, remarkable.
The girl doesn’t want to be what you’ve made her,
but the goddess will never love you.

Growing up, I used to say that 'girls are dumb', because they always chase after guys that are jerks, and ignore the nice guys. Later on after taking some psychology courses in college, I refined, 'dumb', and posited that many if not most women are emotional masochists. However, it's not just women, but men as well. All of us seek perfection. We chase the unattainable, and ignore the attainable. It's a huge turnoff if someone actually is interested in us. And why not? If that person is interested in ME, can she really be worth all that much?

We chase the unattainable, we chase those who hurt us. Possibly because we are emotional masochists, we enjoy the pain. But that's not really it, other than as a punch line. We don't enjoy the pain, no one enjoys the pain. We seek perfection, and the only ones that are perfect are the people that we can never get close enough to to see the flaws. And so we chase them. But as the above poem asserts, are we in fact so addicted to that ideal, that perfection that cannot exist, that we have to create it? We ignore and blind ourselves to reality, we put the object of our desires up on a pedestal so high that we in the end create the unattainableness we seek, because in reality, almost never is someone really unattainable if we have the right mindset. Maybe they aren't interested, maybe they are already taken. But not unattainable for the reason of being superior.

If we could all get rid of the idea that we are inferior, and realize that that pedestal is created by our own mind, then suddenly the unattainableness goes away. But we won't, because then we'd have to face the even worse reality, that our God or Goddess is actually not perfect, but just as flawed as us.